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NEW MUSIC CONCERTS
1973-74 series

FINAL CONCERT OF THE SEASON

Guest Composer:
GEORGE CRUMB

(first appearance in Canada)

Saturday, March 30, 1974
8:30 p.m.
Walter Hall
Edward Johnson Building

University of Toronto

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-¥
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PROGRAMME

DEVOTED TO THE MUSIC OF GEORGE CRUMB

LUX AETERNA (for the Children of the Night) (1972) for Five
Masked Musicians

Mary Morrison, soprano

Robert Aitken, flute

Shambhu Das, sitar

Robin Engelman & John Wyre, percussion

BLACK ANGELS (Thirteen Images from the Dark Land) (1970)
. for Electric String Quartet

Orford String Quartet:

Andrew Dawes, violin Terence Helmer, viola

Kenneth Perkins, violin Marcel St-Cyr, cello
INTERMISSION

VOICE OF THE WHALE (Vox Balaenae) (1971) for Three Masked
| Players

Robert Aitken, flute
Marcel St-Cyr, cello
John Hawkins, piano

ANCIENT VOICES OF CHILDREN (1970)

Mary Morrison, soprano

Paul Pickles, boy soprano

Melvin Berman, oboe

William Kuinka, mandolin

Erica Goodman, harp

John Hawkins, electric piano

Allen Beard, Robin Engelman & John Wyre, percussion

— Robert Aitken, conductor — r

Electronics by James Montgomery of the
Canadian Electronic Ensemble

GEORGE CRUMB

Born in Charleston, West Virginia, in 1929, George Crumb’s
principal teachers in composition were Ross Lee Finney at
the University of Michigan and Boris Blacher at the Hoch-
schule fur Musik in Berlin, Germany. He has been the
recipient of numerous awards, including grants from the
Fulbright Commission, the National Institute of Arts and
Letters, and the Rockefeller, Koussevitzky, Guggenheim and
Coolidge Foundations. In 1968 he was awarded the Pulitzer
Prize in Music for his Echoes of Time and the River: Four
Processionals for. Orchestra. Since 1965 Mr. Crumb has been
a Professor of Composition at the University of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia.

PROGRAMME NOTES

LUX AETERNA (for the Children of the Night) for Five
Masked Musicians

In Lux Aeterna, Crumb’s growing concern with ritual finds its
most articulate (so far) expression. As point of departure he
takes a ritual which has fascinated composers for a thousand
years — the requiem mass.

Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine.
Requiem Aeternam dona eis,
‘Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.

May eternal light shine upon them ~
O Lord, Grant them everlasting
rest, O Lord, and let perpetual

light shine upon them.

In his hands, and under obvious Indian influence, the eternal
light becomes the primal light of the Vedas, the source of all
things illusory or real, than which there is no other.

Lux Aeterna was written in 1972 for soprano, bass flute (and
recorder), sitar and two percussionists. The following is taken
from a review in the village VOICE, written after a perform-
ance of its New York premiere:

“A candle is lit and the ceremonious music begins: bell
sounds. sustained bassoon notes, bowed cymbal effects, many
other curious sounds, most. of them altered with eerie elec-

—— eee

eee

tronic wa-wa effects. Somehow the music begins to alternate
between classical Indian sections and sections where the so-
prano sings the Latin text with very florid lines. The whole
piece is.quite sparse, and it never once loses the intense
Ominous mood suggested by the costumes.

The most remarkable thing about the piece is that every
single sound in it seems to be just right. The sitar, the electro-
nic devices, and the bizarre instrumental effects are never
used for their own sake, but always to specify some exact
shading of sound.”

BLACK ANGELS (Thirteen Images from the Dark Land)
for electric string quartet

1. DEPARTURE

(NUMEROLOGY)
1. (Tutti) Threnody |: Night of the Electric 13 times 7 and
Insects 7 times 13
A2. (Trio) Sounds of Bones and Flutes
3. (Duo) Lost Bells [13 over 7]

Madchen) (Solo obbligato: Insect Sounds)

7 times 7
7. (Tutti) Threnody Il: BLACK ANGELS and12 times i

8. (Trio) Sarabanda de la Muerte Oscura

(Solo obbligato: Insect Sounds)

4. (Solo: Cadenza accompagnata) Devil-music [7 and 13]
5. (Duo) Danse Macabre [13 times 7
if (Duo alternative: Dies Irae)
fl. ABSENCE
6. (Trio) Pavana Lachrymae (Der Tod und das. |13 under 13

9. (Duo) Lost Bells (Echo) [7 times 13]
(Duo alternativo: Sounds of Bones and Flutes)
uy lil. RETURN
10. (Solo: Aria accompagnata) God-music 13 and 7
11. (Duo) Ancient Voices (7 over 13]
12. (Trio) Ancient Voices (Echo)

13. (Tutti) Threnody lil: Night of the Electric 7 times 13
Insects and 13 times 7

Black Angels was conceived as a kind of parable on our
troubled contemporary world. The numerous quasi-program-
matic allusions in the work are therefore symbolic, althouglt
the essential polarity — God versus Devil — implies more than
a purely metaphysical reality.

The underlying structure of Black Angels is a huge arch-like
design which is suspended from the three “‘Threnody”’ pieces.
,The work portrays a voyage of the soul. The three stages of
this voyage are Departure, Absence, and Return.

The numerological symbolism of Black Angels, while perhaps
not immediately perceptible to the ear, is nonetheless quite
faithfully reflected in the musical structure. These ‘‘magical”
relationships are variously expressed — e.g., in terms of
phrase-length, groupings for single tones, durations, patterns
of repetition, etc. An important pitch element in the work —
ascending D-sharp, A, and E — also symbolizes the fateful
numbers 7 & 13. At certain points in the score there occurs
a kind of ritualistic counting in various languages, including
German, French, Russian, Hungarian, Japanese, and Swahili.

There are several allusions to tonal music in Black Angels: a
quotation from Schubert’s Death and the Maiden quartet
(in the Pavana Lachrymae, and also faintly echoed on the last
page of the work); an original Sarabanda; the B Major tonality
of God-music; and several references to the Latin hymn Dies
Irae (“‘Day of Wrath’’). The work abounds in conventional

musical symbolisms such as the Diabolus in musica (the inter-.

val of the tri-tone) and the Trillo di diavolo (the ‘‘Devil’s
trill”, after Tartini).

The amplification of the stringed instruments is intended
to produce a highly surrealistic effect. This surrealism is
heightened by the use of certain unusual string effects, e.g.
pedal tones; bowing on the “‘wrong”’ side of the strings (to
produce the viol-consort effect); trilling on the strings with
thimble-capped fingers. The performers also play maracas,
tam-tams, and water-tuned crystal glasses, the latter plaved
with the bow for the ‘‘glass-harmonica’”’ effect in God-music.

Black Angels was commissioned by the University of Michigan
and first performed by the Stanley Quartet. The score is in-
scribed: “finished on Friday the Thirteenth, March, 1970
(in tempore belli).”’ . |

— George Crumb —

—s

VOICE OF THE WHALE (Vox Balaenae) for Three Masked
2 Players

Vocalise (. . . for the beginning of time)

Variations on Sea-Theme

Sea-theme

' Archeozoic (Var. I)
Proterozoic (Var. II)
Paleozoic (Var. III)
Mesozoic (Var. IV)
Cenozoic (Var. V)

Sea-Nocturne (. . . for the-end of time)

“Voice of the Whale (Vox Balaenae) composed in 1971, is
scored for flute, cello, and piano (all amplified in concert
performance). The work was inspired by the singing of the
humpback whale, a tape recording of which I had heard two
or three years previously. The masks, by effacing the sense of
human projection, are intended to represent, symbolically,
the powerful impersonal forces of nature (i.e. nature
dehumanized).

The form of Voice of the Whale is a simple three-part design,
consisting of a prologue, a set of variations named after the
geological eras, and an epilogue.

The opening Vocalise (marked in the score: ‘‘wildly fantastic,
grotesque’) is a kind of cadenza for the flutist, who simul-
taneously plays his instrument and sings into it. This combi-
nation of instrumental and vocal sound produces an eerie,
surreal timbre, not unlike the sounds of the humpback whale.
The conclusion of the cadenza is announced by a parody of
the opening measures of Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra.

The Sea-Theme (‘‘solemn, with calm majesty’’) is presented
by the cello (in harmonics), accompanied by dark, fateful
chords of strummed piano strings. The following sequence of
variations begins with the haunting sea-gull cries of. the
Archeozoic (“‘timeless, inchoate”’) and, gradually increasing
in intensity, reaches a strident climax in the Cenozojc
(dramatic, with a feeling of destiny”). The emergence of
man in the cenozoic era is symbolized by a restatement of
the Zarathustra reference.

The concluding Sea-Nocturme (‘‘serene, pure, transfigured’’)
is an elaboration of the Sea-Theme. In composing the Sea-
Nocturne I wanted to suggest ‘“‘a larger rhythm of nature”
and a sense of suspension in time.”

— George Crumb —

ANCIENT VOICES OF CHILDREN

Composed during the summer of 1970 on commission from
the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation, Ancient Voices
of Children has received both the International Rostrum of
Composers Award (UNESCO), Paris, and the Koussevitzky
International Recording Award. The work forms part of an
extended cycle of vocal compositions based on the modern
Spanish poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca which includes
Night Music I (1963), four books of Madrigals (1965-69),
Songs, Drones, and Refrains of Death (1968) and Night of
the Four Moons (1969). Ancient Voices of Children was first
performed on October 31, 1970, as part of the Coolidge
Foundation’s 14th Festival of Chamber Music at the Library
of Congress in Washington, D.C.

From the composer’s notes:

“In Ancient Voices, as in my earlier Lorca settings, I have
sought musical images that enhance and reinforce the power-
ful, yet strangely haunting imagery of Lorca’s poetry. I feel
that the essential meaning of this poetry is concerned with
the most primary things: life, death, love, the smell of the
earth, the sounds of the wind and the sea.

The texts are fragments of longer poems which I have grouped
into a sequence that seemed to suggest a ‘larger rhythm’ in
terms of musical continuity. The two purely instrumental
movements — Dances of the Ancient Earth and Ghost Dance —
are dance interludes rather than commentaries on the texts.

Perhaps the most characteristic vocal effect is produced by
the mezzo-soprano singing a kind of fantastic vocalise (based
on purely phonetic sounds) into an amplified piano, thereby
producing a shimmering aura of echoes. The inclusion of a
part for boy soprano seemed the best solution for those
passages in the text where Lorca clearly implies a child’s
voice.

In composing Ancient Voices of Children, I was conscious of
an urge to fuse various unrelated stylistic elements. I was
_ intrigued with the idea of juxtaposing the seemingly incon-
gruous: a suggestion of Flamenco with a Baroque quotation
Bist du bei mir, (from the Notebook of Anna Magdalena
Bach), or areminiscence of Mahler with a breath of the Orient.

It is sometimes of interest to a composer to recall the original
impulse — the “creative germ” — of a compositional project.
In the case of Ancient Voices I felt Eats ete. to be the
climactic final words of the last song: “ .. . and I will go very
far . . . to ask Christ the Lord to give | me back my ancient
soul of a child.” |

[ The little boy was looking for his voice.
(The king of the crickets had it.)
in a drop of water
the little boy was looking for his voice.

I do not want it for speaking with;
I will make a ring of it
so that he may wear my silence

_ on his little finger.

Dances of the Ancient Earth (for oboe, mandolin, harp
and percussion)

Il ‘IT have lost myself j in the sea many times
with my ear full of freshly cut flowers,
with my tongue full of love and agony,
as I lose myself in the heart of certain children.

III (Dance of the Sacred Life Cycle)
From where do you come, my love, my child?
From the ridge of hard frost.
What do you need, my love, my child?
The warm cloth of your dress.
Let the branches ruffle in the sun and
the fountains leap around you!
What do you ask for, my child, from so far away?
The white mountains of your breast.
I’ll tell you, my child, yes, ‘
[ am torn and broken for you.
When, my child, will you come?
When your flesh smells of jasmine-flowers.

IV Each afternoon in Granada,
a child dies each afternoon.

Ghost Dance (for mandolin and maracas)

V_ My heart of silk is filled with lights,
with lost bells, with lilies, and with bees,
and I will go very far,
farther than those hills, farther than the seas,
close to the stars,
to ask Christ the Lord
to give me back
my ancient soul of a child.

The 1973-74 season of New Music Concerts is recorded by
the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for the radio series
Music of Today, heard Wednesday evenings from 9:00 p.m.
to 10:00 p.m. on CBL-FM.

This evening’s performance can be heard on the June 12th
broadcast of Music of Today.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS:

NORMA BEECROFT } ROBERT AITKEN
President Artistic Director

JOHN BECKWITH C.LAUGHTON BIRD JOHN HAWKINS

CONCERT CO-ORDINATOR:
LARAINE HERZOG-DERDEN

New Music Concerts acknowledges the generous support of ‘the
Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Bape of
Metropolitan Toronto.

New Music Concerts acknowledges the generous
support of the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts
Council, and Metropolitan Toronto.

New Music Concerts is under the professional
management of Artists Canada Management,
150 Eglinton Avenue East, Toronto, M4P 1G4,
(416) 481-3371